Donna Brazile

Men don't wear high heels, and they don't make allowances for women who do. Tottering down the corridors of power in beautiful but crippling stilettos telegraphs your preference for style over substance.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

I had an instinctive feeling that the people who have little or no school training should have something coming into their homes weekly which dealt with their problems in a simple, helpful way... so I wrote in a plain, common-sense way on the things that concerned our people.